Farm to Fork Food Safety

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Validity of DNA barcode testing of supplements that contain herbal extracts is being questioned following the New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s order that four retailers in the state discontinue selling their store-brand products. DNA barcoding showed that only 21 percent of the store-brand supplements contain the plants listed on the labels and that many products do not contain any DNA from a botanical source.

Food dyes may be useful for more than just giving your cherry Jell-O that vivid red hue. In research described at the annual meeting of the Biophysical Society in early February, a team of food scientists from Rutgers University in New Jersey has found that common food dyes have the potential for use as edible probes of food quality.

A collaboration between Mars Inc. and IBM will merge the skills of both companies to investigate the genetic fingerprints of bacteria, fungi, or viruses that are impacting the safety of the global food supply. This collaboration, called the Consortium for Sequencing the Food Supply Chain, was announced in January.

In his 2016 budget plan, President Barack Obama proposed consolidating the food safety oversight now under the purview of the FDA and the Agriculture Department’s FSIS into a single new agency within the Department of Health and Human Services. The agency would direct food safety inspections, enforcement, applied research, and responses to food-poisoning outbreaks.

The European Food Safety Authority has determined that current levels of exposure to BPA pose no health risk to any population group, including pregnant women, the elderly, unborn children, infants, and adolescents. BPA is a chemical compound used in some polycarbonate plastic food contact materials, including reusable plastic tableware, metal can coatings, water bottles, and cosmetics.

“The American consumer has moved away from the Sunday roast and the whole chicken to buying chicken breasts, legs, and wings, and it’s a progressive regulatory and public health strategy to address that,” says David Acheson, MD, founder and CEO of The Acheson Group and a former FDA associate commissioner for foods.

New York Senator Charles Schumer has issued a call for the FDA to increase inspections at food warehouses throughout the country, citing some 90 warnings issued by the agency in 2014 to food facilities about insanitary conditions that included, in multiple cases, dead rodents and rodent feces.

The draft EIS focuses on four key areas in the produce safety rule: definition of covered farms, water quality standards, biological soil amendments of animal origin, and actions taken with respect to domesticated and wild animals on farm lands. Only the water quality standards have been identified as potentially having a significant adverse environmental impact.

Fresh and locally grown produce available at farmers’ markets comes with some health risks, according to a study that found Salmonella and E. coli in samples of basil, cilantro, and parsley purchased at 13 such markets. The finding is a reminder that federal food safety regulations that govern large-scale farm practices don't apply to produce sold by smaller farms that sell their harvest at local farmers’ markets.

Current buffer zone guidelines, which recommend that produce be planted at least 400 feet away from livestock feedlots in order to prevent contamination with airborne pathogens, may not be sufficient to protect produce from E. coli O157:H7, according to new research from USDA scientists at the Agricultural Research Service, U.S. Meat Animal Research Center.

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Food Quality & Safety (formerly Food Quality) is the established authority in delivering strategic and tactical approaches necessary for quality assurance, safety, and security in the food and beverage industry.